“Matter is the basis of all that exists . . .”
matter is the basis of all that exists; it comprises the potentiality of everything, but of itself is not actually anything. A determinate thing only comes into being when the potentiality in matter is converted into actuality. This is achieved by form, the idea existent not as one outside the many, but as one in the many, the completion of the potentiality latent in the matter.
Aristotle, Peripatetic School (335 BC)